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A  KITTLE  CHILOSOPHY  of  HIFE 


A  KITTLE  QHILOSOPHY 

of  HlFE 
[By  ROBERT  J.  BURDETTE] 

"For  what  is  your  Life?     It  is  even 

a  vapour,  that  appeareth  for 

a  little  time,  and  then 

vanisheth  away." 

—  JAMES  4;  14. 


A  KITTLE  QHILOSOPHY 

of  HlFE 


S  THERE  such  a  thing  as  a  "philosophy  of  life?" 
Life  is  the  philosophy  of  everything;  the  study 
of  all  things;  the  testing  of  all  things. 

«**    THE  LUCKY  man  is  he  who  despises  luck. 
The  unlucky  one  is  the  fellow  who  worships  it. 

&  GREAT  inventions  may  be  wrought  out  in  the  brain. 
Great  thoughts  are  born  in  the  heart. 

&  ONE  of  the  best  ways  to  find  trouble,  my  boy,  is  to  carry 
a  revolver  without  knowing  how  to  use  it. 

&  MEMORY  may  be  a  hell  or  a  paradise.  It  depends  on 
whether  you  spend  your  youth  manufacturing  brimstone  or 
planting  roses. 

&  WHEN  I  hear  a  man  trying  to  do  all  the  talking  for  the 
crowd,  I  remember  that  a  drum  makes  more  noise  than  a 
cask  of  sugar,  because  it  is  empty. 

&  A  MAN  is  a  fool  to  worry  about  his  "past,"  if  he  has  one. 
A  man  or  woman  with  a  "past"  isn't  half  so  badly  off  as  the 
sinner  who  yet  has  "something  coming  to  him." 


[9] 


[A   LITTLE  PHILOSOPHY  of  LIFE] 


J*  I  DON'T  believe  in  rejecting  and  despising  a  man  because 
of  his  faults.  Make  them  useful  to  him.  For  example,  a  con- 
ceited man  is  like  a  tire,  which  is  of  no  earthly  account  until 
it  is  inflated. 

J*  ONE  of  the  meanest  things  about  sowing  wild  oats  is 
that  the  profligate  scatters  about  half  the  seed  on  some  good 
man's  wheat  field.  And  more  than  half  the  wild  oats  turn 
out  to  be  rye. 

«*  WHENEVER  you  begin  to  complain  that  you  are  not  ap- 
preciated, you  are  plainly  off  your  job.  When  a  dog  is  chasing 
a  rabbit  he  doesn't  care  whether  you  call  him  pet  names  or 
throw  stones  at  him. 

J*  VERY  few  men  are  vain,  I  think.  But  all  men  love  com- 
fort as  their  chief  joy.  There  isn't  one  man  in  a  thousand 
who  would  exchange  his  good  digestion  for  a  handsome  face. 
Now,  a  woman 

<*  MONEY  talks — yes,  my  son.  But  only  while  it's  work- 
ing. When  it  goes  on  strike,  or  is  loafing  on  general 
principles,  it  loses  interest  in  everything  and  becomes  as 
silent  as  a  log  on  a  mudbank. 

J*  A  MAN  can  hardly  be  so  bad  that  he  will  not  have  some 
friends  who  believe  in  him  and  who  stick  to  him.  But  the 
trouble  with  a  bad  man  is,  that  his  friends  are  so  much  like 
himself  he  would  be  much  better  off  without  any. 

[10] 


[A  LITTLE  PHILOSOPHY  of  LIFE] 


&  IT  is  pleasant  to  have  people  love  you  who  do  not  know 
you.  But  oh,  the  immeasurable  love  of  a  friend  who  has 
found  you  out,  who  knows  you  through  and  through,  and 
still  loves  you.  Well,  that's  the  way  God  loves  us. 

•^  IT  HAS  been  a  good  world  to  me.  I  have  always  had 
more  friends  than  I  could  count  and  more  good  fortune  than 
I  could  measure.  I  have  always  got  everything  I  wanted. 
When  I  couldn't  get  it,  I  didn't  want  it,  which  is  the  same 
thing  as  having  it.  Sometimes  it  is  better. 

&  No,  religion  does  not  give — it  does  not  promise  a  man 
immunity  from  misfortunes.  Neither  does  an  accident  policy 
promise  or  protect  the  holder  from  a  railway  smash-up  or 
an  automobile  accident.  But  it  is  a  beautifully  comforting 
thing  to  the  insured  while  he's  in  the  hospital. 

&  WHAT  you  wish  you  were,  that's  your  ideal.  What 
people  say  you  are,  that's  your  reputation.  What  you  know 
you  are,  that's  your  character.  To  paraphrase  Abraham 
Lincoln,  you  may  fool  some  other  people  part  of  the  time, 
but  you  can't  fool  yourself  a  little  bit  of  the  time. 

«**  THE  heart  always  has  ruled  the  world,  and  it  always 
will.  Love  is  the  best  teacher  in  the  universe,  because  it  is 
the  most  patient.  The  race  of  mankind  is  wise  and  strong, 
as  it  is  today,  only  because  ten  thousand  years  of  our  stupidity, 
our  obstinacy  and  our  ingratitude  haven't  wearied  God. 


[11] 


[A   LITTLE  PHILOSOPHY  of  Lir 


&  IF  THE  uses  oi  adversity  are  not  sweet — and  Paul  says 
they  are  not — they  are  most  efficacious.  You  have  to  hit  a 
nail  on  the  head  half  a  dozen  times  before  it  will  comprehend 
its  perfect  destiny.  Well,  God  has  to  deal  with  some  men — 
fellows  like  you  and  me — in  the  same  manner,  sometimes. 

J*  LIFE  has  never  presented  many  "problems"  to  me.  I 
have  been  too  busy.  Working  people  do  not  evolve  "prob- 
lems." They  are  invented  by  the  learned  idlers,  gossiping 
about  the  market  place  like  Paul's  Athenians,  "who  spend 
their  time  in  nothing  else,  but  either  to  tell  or  to  hear  some 
new  thing." 

&  I  HAVE  lived  a  busy  life.  I  entered  the  newspaper  grind 
early,  and  I  have  never  been  out  of  the  old  mill.  Whether 
I  abode  at  home  or  went  on  long  journeys,  around  the  town 
or  around  the  world,  I  carried  my  work  with  me.  My  vaca- 
tions were  merely  "assignments."  The  nearest  postoffice  was 
a  copyhook.  People  and  things  were  "stories." 

«*  IT  is  a  good  world.  Five  times  in  the  story  of  Creation 
the  historian  pauses  to  say  as  new  things  were  made,  "and 
God  saw  that  it  was  good."  And  the  seventh  day — the  day 
of  completion  and  rest,  He  made  holy  forever,  "blessing  and 
sanctifying  it."  So  the  cornerstone  of  creation  is  goodness, 
the  finial  holiness.  How  could  a  better  world  be  made? 

J*  IT  ISN'T  enough  to  be  good  nor  to  do  good.  It  is  quite 
essential  to  do  good  in  the  right  way.  A  prayer  for  many 


[12] 


A  LITTLE  PHILOSOPHY  of  LIFE] 

of  our  Best  Sinners  would  be — "Dear  Christ  of  the  Leper, 
Savior  of  the  Publican,  Lover  of  the  Unlovely  and  Friend 
of  the  Hateful,  forgive  me  in  that  I  have  done  good  spitefully, 
that  I  have  given  alms  scornfully,  that  I  have  done  a  kindness 
savagely,  and  that  I  have  loved  a  friend  grudgingly." 

«*  WHENEVER  I  have  done  right,  it  has  always  seemed  to 
me  that  somebody  or  something  helped  me.  But  when  I 
have  gone  wrong,  I  have  sinned  through  no  one's  fault  but 
my  own.  No  man  ever  made  me  do  wrong.  The  man  who 
has  the  headache  next  morning  is  the  fellow  who  transgressed 
the  night  before.  The  sinner  can  no  more  shift  his  respon- 
sibility than  he  can  wish  his  headache  off  on  the  other  fellow. 

«*  WELL,  I  have  always  loved  to  work.  It  has  been  pleas- 
ant in  the  old  mill,  with  its  rafters  bronzing  by  the  years,  its 
shadowy  corners,  its  far  views  from  the  dormers  up  in  the 
loft,  the  mysterious  gurglings  and  murmurings  of  hidden 
waters  down  deep  among  the  foundations,  the  quiet  pond  and 
the  earnest  rush  of  the  race,  and  the  merry  laughter  of  the 
"tail  race."  For  I  ground  my  finest  flour  from  the  grist  the 
people  brought  me.  The  best  of  my  work  might  have  been 
done  much  better ;  the  worst  of  it  had  better  been  left  undone ; 
all  of  it  has  been  mediocre.  But  I  ground  the  grist  that  was 
brought  me,  and  took  only  fair  toll.  And  some  day,  in  a  better 
mill,  with  improved  machinery,  with  finer  material,  with 
choicer  grist,  a  steadier  power  and  a  better  light  I  will  do 
better  work. 


[13] 


[A   LITTLE  PHILOSOPHY  of  LIFE 

J*  A  GOOD  father  and  a  good  mother — "old  fashioned  ?" 
Well,  yes ;  about  as  old-fashioned  as  fathers  and  mothers  have 
been  ever  since  the  birth  of  Cain — taught  me  from  a  Good 
Book  that  the  way  of  life  and  the  plan  of  salvation  is  so 
simple  and  plain  that  not  even  the  philosophers  could  mud- 
dle it — "He  hath  showed  thee,  O  man,  what  is  good,  and 
what  doth  the  Lord  require  of  thee  but  to  do  justly,  to  love 
mercy,  to  walk  humbly  with  God."  That's  plain  enough 
until  some  learned  man  begins  to  explain  it.  If  that's  all 
that  God  wants  of  me,  I  don't  care  what  the  "Apostle's 
Creed,"  or  the  "Thirty-nine  Articles,"  or  the  "Confession  of 
Faith"  demands  of  me.  But  that  seems  to  include  about 
everything.  And  yet  I  believe  in  "creeds."  How  can  a 
man  live  without  a  standard? 

«**  I  NEVER  worry  about  the  Day  of  Judgment.  That 
there  will  be  one  I  am  positive.  That  it  will  be  as  dreadful 
as  John  of  Patmos  describes,  I  believe.  But  terrible  as  it 
will  be  to  have  all  one's  sins  uncovered  and  set  before  God 
and  the  world,  naked  and  in  the  light  of  day,  that  won't 
be  one-half  so  terrible  as  it  was  to  have  committed  them. 
And  yet  that  we  rather  enjoyed.  And  another  most  dreadful 
thing  about  the  Day  of  Judgment  is  the  fact  that  somebody 
knows  all  about  our  sins  now.  There  never  was  a  "secret 
sin"  since  the  serpent  invaded  Eden.  There  have  been  at 
least  three  living  eye-witnesses  to  every  offense — the  sinner, 
the  victim,  who  is  frequently  only  the  other  sinner,  and  the 
Judge  who  is  going  to  try  you  both.  The  best  time  to  get 


[14] 


A  LITTLE  PHILOSOPHY  of  LIFE] 

scared  about  the  Day  of  Judgment  is  about  ten  minutes  before 
you  make  a  fool  of  yourself. 

**  LIFE  has  been  to  me  a  pilgrimage  of  joy.  I've  never  had 
very  much  trouble,  and  what  I  have  had  has  been  of  my  own 
making  and  selection,  and  when  I  went  to  the  hospital  I  took 
my  medicine  without  making  faces  or  asking  for  "sympathy." 
I  was  ashamed  to.  Like  "Peter  and  the  Pain  Killer,"  I  knew 
I  was  only  getting  what  I  had  asked  for.  But  up  one  hill 
and  down  the  other  the  pilgrimage  had  lain  through  pleasant 
places — good  roads,  safe  trails,  fine  pasturage,  sweet  water 
and  beautiful  camping  places.  A  few  giants,  mostly  wind- 
mills; millions  of  midgets  and  mosquitoes,  troublesome  but 
not  fatal;  occasionally  a  mean  man,  so  ashamed  of  himself 
that  he  lied  about  it;  now  and  then  a  liar;  once  in  a  while 
a  hold-up  man,  with  a  subscription  paper;  and  all  along  the 
way  a  horde  of  beggars.  But  in  the  main  good  people ;  kind- 
hearted,  generous  people,  honest  people.  Lots  of  houses  build 
close  "by  the  side  of  the  road."  The  world  is  full  of  friendly 
people  for  friendly  men.  And  I'm  fond  of  people.  I  believe 
in  them.  I  love  them.  I  sympathize  with  them.  I  like  to 
meet  them,  and  to  walk  with  them,  and  to  have  them  about 
me,  so  long  as  they  can  stand  me. 

•J*  A  YOUNG  disciple  one  day  asked  me,  when  I  was  pastor 
of  the  Temple,  "Pastor,  how  can  I  learn  to  trust  God?  How- 
can  I  acquire  faith?"  And  I  said,  "That  is  easy  and  simple. 
Just  lie  down  at  night  and  go  to  sleep.  You  are  helpless  and 


[15] 


LA   LITTLE   PHILOSOPHY  of  LIFE 


I 

defenseless  as  a  dead  person.  You  do  not  see  the  storm  gath- 
ering above  your  home,  with  black  destruction  in  its  whirling 
wings.  You  cannot  see  the  tiny  tongue  of  flame  catching  at 
the  corner  of  the  room  in  which  you  sleep.  You  do  not  hear 
the  robber  stealthily  unfastening  the  fancied  security  of  lock 
and  bolt.  You  know  absolutely  nothing  of  the  score  of  evils 
that  may  be  threatening  your  peace  and  safety.  The  night 
may  be  ghastly  with  perils  all  about  you.  But  you  sleep 
sweetly,  safely,  and  you  awake  in  the  morning  refreshed  and 
strengthened.  Protecting  love  has  enfolded  you  like  a  gar- 
ment. And  you  believed  it  would  when  you  lay  down,  else 
you  never  could  have  gone  to  sleep.  Well,  that's  trust. 
That's  perfect  trust.  Just  hold  on  to  it  while  you  are 
awake.  Who  takes  care  of  you  while  you  sleep  ?  Not  father 
and  mother.  Not  the  servants.  Nor  the  watchdog.  Nor 
the  policeman  a  mile  away.  "Except  the  Lord  keep  the  city, 
the  watchman  waketh  but  in  vain."  You  trust  in  God, 
that's  all. 

**  Do  I  believe  in  laughter  as  much  as  ever  I  did  ?  A  great 
deal  more  than  ever  I  did,  even  in  the  days  that  were  rip- 
ples of  dimples  on  the  sunlit  eddies  of  a  river  of  laughter. 
How  could  life  be  best  lived  without  it — God's  exclusive  gift 
to  his  human  children?  Laughter  is  a  good  servant.  But 
don't  overwork  him  or  he  will  sulk,  and  maybe  strike  for 
shorter  hours.  Don't  smile  so  much  all  day  that  the  corners 
of  your  mouth  droop  with  weariness  when  you  come  home 


[16] 


LITTLE  PHILOSOPHY  of  LIFE] 


at  night.  "Always  leave  them  with  a  laugh"  is  the  axiom 
of  a  commercial  traveler  who  has  no  home.  Laughter  is 
cheery,  good-natured,  willing,  but  wearies  easily.  He  is  a 
poor  hand  at  "day's  work"  and  tires  at  a  continuous  job. 
He  is  a  thoroughbred,  and  must  be  humored  and  well 
groomed.  You  can't  work  him  like  a  plow-horse.  He  shines 
most  brightly  at  "piece  work."  He  must  needs  have  inter- 
vals of  quiet  meditation;  sober  reflection;  tranquil  introspec- 
tion. He  must  have  the  inspiration  of  earnest  purpose;  the 
repose  of  a  little  minute  of  prayer.  Don't  mistake  the  ever- 
lasting barnyard  cackle  that  emanates  from  between  the  roof 
of  the  mouth  and  the  glottis  for  Laughter.  Unless  there  is 
brain  and  heart — intellect  and  love  in  it — it  isn't  the  laughter 
that  I  know  anything  about.  The  thing  on  the  face  of  a 
skull  is  a  grin,  but  it  isn't  a  smile.  It  used  to  be,  but  the 
smile  died  when  it  became  perpetual.  No  matter  what  the 
empty-headed  philosophers  say  on  the  postcards,  don't  try  to 
smile  all  the  time.  Unless  you  want  people  to  hate  the  sight 
of  you. 

fc  LIFE  is  a  book  in  which  we  read  a  page  a  day.  We  can't 
read  a  page  ahead;  we  can  not  turn  clear  over  to  the  last 
chapter  to  see  how  it  ends,  because  we  write  the  story  our- 
selves, setting  the  type,  as  a  good  compositor  can  do,  from  the 
copy  of  our  own  thoughts  and  actions,  till  the  evening  of 
each  day  runs  off  the  edition.  The  best  compositor  is  he  who 
sets  each  day's  page  with  the  fewest  errors,  and  wastes  the 
least  time  correcting  a  "dirty  proof."  Even  with  the  best 


[17] 


LITTLE  PHILOSOPHY  of  LIF 


of  us,  much  of  each  day's  page  is  an  "errata"  correcting  the 
mistakes  of  yesterday.  Unsinkable  ships — the  bottom  of  the 
sea  is  covered  with  them.  Invulnerable  armor — it  cumbers 
the  reefs,  full  of  holes.  Incontrovertible  arguments  and  incon- 
testable theories — they  lie  dusting  in  the  scrap-heaps  of  history 
and  philosophy,  answered,  contradicted,  disproved  and  thrown 
away.  But  the  pages  are — or  should  be — growing  cleaner 
every  day.  The  compositor  learns.  The  child  is  fearless, 
knowing  nothing.  So  he  grasps  the  flaming  candle.  The  old 
man  is  cautious,  knowing  too  much.  He  knows  that  ice  burns 
like  fire.  And  another  thing  to  be  remembered  about  this 
book  of  life  which  every  one  of  us  is  writing,  each  for  him- 
self. The  pages  are  all  the  same  size — twenty-four  hours, 
brevier  measure.  "The  evening  and  the  morning  was  the 
first  day."  That  established  the  standard.  And  every  morn- 
ing the  inexorable  office  boy  with  the  intolerable  name  stands 
at  your  door  shouting  "copy!"  And  you've  got  to  furnish 
it.  Got  to.  Got  to.  Got  to.  Kill  your  grandmother  once  a 
week  to  get  to  the  ball  game  if  you  will — that  goes  into  your 
"story"  and  fills  up  that  day's  page.  That's  life. 

^  Is  THE  world  as  funny  as  it  used  to  be?  Funnier,  my 
son;  a  great  deal  funnier.  It  grows  "funnier"  as  you  grow 
older.  But  it  doesn't  know  it,  because  it  is  apt  to  be  "fun- 
niest" when  it  thinks  it  is  wisest.  Laughter  grows  more 
serious  as  it  contemplates  the  funny  old  world.  The  trage- 
dies of  the  years  temper  the  jests.  Yes;  I  understand.  I  read 


[18] 


[A   LITTLE  PHILOSOPHY  of  LIFE] 


a  paragraph  about  myself  in  a  critical  editorial  the  other  day, 
saying  that  "ten  years  of  the  ministry  had  taken  much  of 
the  ginger  out  of  old  Bob's  fun."  It  was  written  by  a  young 
man,  of  course.  The  things  that  are  funny  to  him  were 
uproariously  funny  to  me  fifty  years  ago.  I  used  to  write 
funny  sketches  about  sudden  death  and  funerals.  But  during 
ten  years  of  the  ministry  I  have  sat  beside  many  deathbeds, 
and  have  stood  beside  many  caskets  trying  to  speak  words  of 
consolation  for  breaking  hearts.  Today,  I  can't  laugh  over 
"Buck  Fanshaw's  Funeral" — the  funniest  mortuary  narrative 
ever  written.  Misfortunes  used  to  be  my  principal  stock  in 
trade  for  mirthful  sketches.  Ten  years  in  the  ministry  have 
made  the  sorrows  of  thousands  of  people  my  own.  What  a 
rollick  there  used  to  be  in  a  good  poker  story,  told  in  rattling 
phrase.  I  have  seen  too  many  homes  broken  up  and  too  many 
lives  wrecked  by  the  gamblers  to  appreciate  the  humor  of  the 
cards.  Twice  I  have  seen  men  murdered  at  the  gaming  table 
— and  each  murder  was  followed  by  a  hanging.  Hard  to 
write  funny  poker  stories  with  those  grisly  phantoms  of  blood 
and  strangling  leering  up  into  your  face  from  the  white  sheet 
under  your  pen.  Eh?  And  when  there  was  nothing  else  to 
write  about  on  a  dull  day,  the  drunkard  was  always  an  un- 
failing figure  for  comedy.  What  could  be  funnier  than  a 
drunken  man?  Well,  now  I  can  no  more  appreciate  the 
drunken  man,  even  on  the  comic  stage,  than  the  wife  whose 
face  he  bruised  with  his  clenched  fist  could  appreciate  the 
antics  of  her  drunken  husband.  I  have  seen  the  brute  too 

[19] 


LITTLE  PHILOSOPHY  of  LIF 


often  at  close  range,  with  all  the  old  manhood  gone,  and  not 
a  thing  but  the  brute  and  the  devil  left.  Oh,  I  enjoy  life 
better  than  ever  I  did.  I  can  assure  my  critic  that  "ginger 
is  still  hot  i'  the  mouth."  The  world  is  just  as  funny  as  ever. 
But  the  fun  has  changed  with  the  point  of  view.  Don't  you 
understand,  son  ?  It's  the  old  story  of  the  frogs  and  the  boys. 
Humor  is  a  matter  of  personal  taste,  to  a  great  extent.  What 
sends  your  neighbor  into  convulsions  of  mirth  may  disgust 
you  to  the  very  soul. 

&  IT  HAS  been  such  a  good  world  that  I'd  be  sorry  ever  to 
leave  it,  if  there  wasn't  another  one,  as  much  better  than  this, 
as  this  one  is  better  than  the  chaos  out  of  which  it  was  born. 
No;  I  don't  just  "believe"  this;  I  know  it.  That's  one  of  the 
few  things  I  do  know — positively,  absolutely,  certainly,  and 
I  didn't  have  to  wait  for  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  to  tell  me  about 
it,  either.  I  knew  that  when  I  was  a  boy,  just  as  well  as  Sir 
Oliver  knows  it  now,  and  for  the  same  reasons,  and  with  the 
same  proofs.  All  this  summer  and  late  into  the  autumn  days 
we  have  been  living  in  our  seaside  home,  "Eventide," — so 
named  by  Mrs.  Burdette  because  it  faces  the  sunset.  "After- 
noon land"  is  very  pleasant  in  spite  of  broken  health  and 
increasing  weakness.  Every  evening  I  sit  in  the  sun-room 
and  watch  the  sun  creep  down  the  western  wall  of  the  sky, 
sinking  to  its  rest  beyond  the  farther  rim  of  the  blue  Pacific. 
I  know  what  is  over  there,  because  I  have  journeyed  in  those 
lands,  and  can  follow  the  sun  as  he  fades  out  of  sight  and 
begins  to  illumine  the  Orient.  There,  just  where  he  drops 


[20] 


A  LITTLE  PHILOSOPHY  of  LIFE] 

below  the  waves,  rise  the  green  shores  of  picturesque  Japan. 
Yokohama,  Tokyo,  Nikko,  snow-crowned  Fujihama,  the 
beautiful  Inland  Sea, — I  can  see  them  all.  There  where  that 
silver  star  is  shining  through  the  crimson  bars  of  the  clouds, 
is  China.  Over  there,  where  the  clouds  are  white  as  snow 
banks — there  is  Manila.  Yonder,  where  the  black  cloud  is 
tipped  with  flame,  is  Port  Arthur.  I  know  them  all.  I  have 
been  there.  Well,  beyond  the  gates  of  the  sunset,  farther 
away  than  the  stars,  away  past  the  bars  of  the  night,  there  is 
another  land.  I  have  never  seen  it.  I  have  never  seen  anyone 
who  has  been  there.  But  all  that  I  know  about  the  oriental 
lands  in  which  I  have  journeyed  is  mere  conjecture  with  my 
positive  belief  in  that  Blessed  Land  which  eye  hath  not  seen. 
That  Fair  and  Happy  Country  I  do  know.  Know  it  with 
a  sublime  assurance  which  is  never  shadowed  by  a  cloud  of 
passing  doubt.  I  may  become  confused  in  my  terrestrial 
geography.  But  this  Heaven  of  ours — no  man,  no  circum- 
stance can  ever  shake  my  faith  in  that.  As  the  sun  sinks 
lower  and  the  skies  grow  darker  in  the  deepening  twilight, 
the  star  of  Faith  shines  more  brightly  and  Hope  sings  more 
clearly  and  sweetly.  Every  evening,  when  the  sun  goes  down, 
I  can  see  that  land  of  Eternal  Morning.  I  know  it  is  there, 
not  because  I  have  seen  it,  but  because  I  do  see  it.  The 
Shadowless  Land,  "where  we  shall  hunger  no  more,  neither 
thirst  any  more;  where  there  shall  be  no  more  death,  neither 
sorrow,  nor  crying,  neither  shall  there  be  any  more  pain; 

[21] 


[A   LITTLE  PHILOSOPHY  of  LIFE 


where  God  shall  dwell  with  men,  and  they  shall  be  His 
people,  and  He  shall  wipe  away  all  tears  from  their  eyes." 

&  THE  shadows  are  deeping  around  the  pond  and  the 
stream  is  singing  itself  to  sleep.  But  there  is  yet  a  little  grist 
in  the  hopper,  and  while  the  water  serves  I  will  keep  on 
grinding.  And  by  the  time  the  sun  is  down,  and  the  flow  in 
the  race  is  not  enough  to  turn  the  big  wheel,  the  grist  will 
have  run  out,  and  I  will  have  the  old  mill  swept  and  tidied 
for  the  night.  And  then,  for  home  and  a  cheery  evening,  a 
quiet  night,  lighted  with  stars  and  pillowed  with  sleep.  And 
after  that,  the  dawning,  and  another  day;  fairer  than  any  I 
have  ever  seen  in  this  beautiful  world  of  roseate  mornings 
and  radiant  sunsets. 


[22] 


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